Jane Goodall: Facts and Information

Jane Goodall is considered to be the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees and has studied them for over 40 years. She is also an anthropologist and is involved in animal rights and conservation.

She was born in April, 1934 in London and as a child was given a toy chimp, which she still keeps in her bedroom. She went on to study animal behavior at Cambridge University.

From an early age she dreamed of visiting Africa. She became interested in bird watching and read books on animals and first visited Kenya, Africa to meet a childhood friend.

In Kenya, she worked for the well-known anthropologist Louis Leakey. She studied monkeys on an island and worked on an archaeological site to find evidence of early humans.

In 1960, she began studying the chimps in Gombe Stream Park, Tanzania.

She discovered that chimps were able to catch food and make basic tools from tree branches.

While in Africa, she devised the Banana Club, a feeding system to get as close as possible to the chimps. She ate the same food as the chimpanzees and spent time in the trees with them.

The Jane Goodall Institute was established in 1977 to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It has offices in over 12 countries and over 10,000 groups in over 100 countries.

Jane Goodall has always given her chimps names, rather than just numbers, and treated them as individuals. Their names include Frodo, Goliath, David Greybeard and Mr. McGregor.

Jane Goodall is an enthusiastic supporter of animal rights. She has been the president of Advocates for Animals, and supporter of an Australian animal protection group called Voiceless.

She has won many awards, including the London Zoo Silver Medal, the Rain Forest Champion Alliance Award and she has been given an OBE. She has a plaque dedicated to her at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida.